


Thanks For Playing

by NoBrandHero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Criticism, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, Self-Hatred, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6841537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoBrandHero/pseuds/NoBrandHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything falls back into their old cycles after "the end" fades to black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanks For Playing

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I can't keep my thoughts coherent and I have no way to articulate myself outside of fiction, so here is a prose-type interpretative dance expressing how I feel about Homestuck's ending.

It starts as a happy ending. No more battles, no more constant dread, no more loneliness. Everyone's together and safe.

It ends with a huffy retort in a minor argument. It's as simple as Jade disagreeing with John on an interpretation of a movie; she keeps her tone even as she defends her point, but it pushes his buttons all the same. He crosses his arms and says matter-of-factly, "The real Jade wouldn't say that."

"I'm real!"

John feels a brief pang of guilt and waves her off, letting the argument fizzle into awkward silence. Jade bottles up the hurt and the anger, just as she always has, and tells herself it doesn't matter. Getting emotional doesn't help anybody.

She watches movies with John less and less.

Rose picks up the bottle again. She misses a mother from another universe, a mother she misunderstood, a mother who deserved a better daughter. So she drinks in solidarity and in search of answers. She drinks to cover over her failure as a Seer who let a Thief wrest away her duties as a strategist.

No one knows how to help her. Vriska always handled it before and Vriska isn't here.

Dave avoids Rose when she's drunk. It's none of his business. He doesn't like confrontation, especially with someone who can kick his ass in an argument. She'll be fine, he figures. She's smart. Someone else can take care of it.

Kanaya doesn't understand human addiction and she doesn't want to risk falling back into her habit of meddling. Prodding too often might alienate their relationship, or even worse, push it from flushed into pale territory.

Besides, if she confronts Rose, what's to stop Rose from turning it back on her? Rose has surely stumbled on the stash of blood, just as Kanaya has found Rose's stash of booze.

Jake breaks off from the group. He's a social mess who only upsets people. He's best off living as a hermit again, where he can't hurt anyone.

Dirk breaks off from the group. He's a manipulative monster unfit for human society anyway. If he can't stand to deal with himself, why should he force anyone else to?

Jane breaks off from the group. She did too many unfathomably horrible things to her friends under the control of the Condesce. She can never live it down, not when she always had it in her; it just took the tiaratop to bring it to the surface.

Roxy's time is sapped just trying to coax her friends back together, pleading with them that their flaws don't define them. She's almost physically ill from stress when she discovers that Rose fell off the wagon.

John and Dave aren't on speaking terms anymore and no one knows why. Karkat pries, but Dave refuses to repeat John's words: "Why don't you act more like Davesprite?"

No one asks what happened to Davesprite. No one really cares -- except for John, when it's convenient. Davesprite never mattered anyway. He's happy now though, somewhere. The new voices blaring in his head insist that he's happy; his opinion doesn't really matter, just like the rest of him.

Repopulating the troll species proves slower than expected, in no small part thanks to Karkat's rash impatience. He rushes it time and again. He doesn't have time to sit around on his ass when he could be getting shit done. He has to prove himself as a leader. How are they going to recreate Alternia if it takes this damn long?

Dave wonders if it's the greatest idea to resurrect a culture based so heavily on violence, but Karkat dismisses him. "Are you kidding me? Alternia was fucking great!" That's all there is to say on the matter.

Terezi keeps her distance. She smiles when it counts, when anyone's looking, but there's rarely a moment that Vriska's words don't echo through her head and eat at her. Her confidence is a facade, torn down piece by piece by a moirail she can't stop missing. She can't shake the unease that this is all her doing.

John's dad is still dead, but he has Jane's dad now and that's the same thing, right? When the cake tastes just a little bit different than his father used to make, it's just a coincidence that John lashes out at his friends more often over unrelated, trivial matters.

**Author's Note:**

>  **"They have to face all these issues themselves, or they will never learn and grow as people. The journey itself is more important than the destination. The struggle is what builds character and teaches us about ourselves and about life. If you lick a lollipop that flips a switch in your brain that says 'all my problems are solved,' I guess maybe that's fine for cherubs, but if you're a human you haven't actually solved anything"** \- Andrew Hussie


End file.
